


Ghost Bride

by TruantPony



Category: Bleach
Genre: Chinese Mythology & Folklore, F/M, Mystery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-22
Updated: 2014-01-02
Packaged: 2017-12-06 03:15:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/730895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TruantPony/pseuds/TruantPony
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One moment she was sick, and the next thing she knew, Rukia had become a ghost haunting Kuchiki manor.  Unmarried daughters have no ancestors to pay their respects to them in the afterlife, so, hoping to set her spirit to rest, Rukia's brother and sister arrange a 'ghost marriage' for her.  The problem is, her groom can actually see her!  All sorts of adventures ensue as Rukia and her living 'sidekick' solve mysteries and murders in the sleepy little town of Karakura.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Surfeit of Sadness

**Author's Note:**

> This multi-chapter IchiRuki ghost story draws influences from a variety of Chinese folktales.

Rukia couldn’t remember how she died.  All she could remember was the fever that had burned through her, the unnatural heat that left her drenched in sweat, the cold chills that followed after, and the uncontrollable shivers that made her teeth rattle and click together.  The illness had taken her in its grip and shaken all the bones in her body until at last she fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.  
  
When she woke, the house was in mourning.    
  
“I didn’t mean to die!” she wailed as her sister wept, but no one could see her or hear her no matter how loud she screamed.    
  
They buried her, dug a grave in the cold winter dirt.  Clods of damp brown sod clung to the shovels of the gravediggers.  Byakuya inclined his head sadly and Rukia turned away as the family attendants lowered a small cloth-wrapped bundle into the grave.  
  
Hisana cried softly against Byakuya's shoulder.  Rukia floated over and touched her sister's sleeve gently.  Hisana was always so frail and delicate.  Who would make sure she took care of her health now?  
  
"Don't cry, I'm still here," Rukia said softly.  "I'll never leave you or Byakuya."  She made the promise from the bottom of her fierce little heart.  After all, they were her precious family, the only family she had ever known and she loved them with every fiber of her being.  
  
Sycophants and mourners alike, all passed through her incorporeal body as they paid their respects and gave their condolences to Hisana and Byakuya.    
  
“How rude!” Rukia sniffed as she wandered down the long empty halls of Kuchiki manor.    
  
“I didn’t want to die,” she explained to her childhood friend Renji, who looked so stricken at the news, but he couldn’t hear her either.    
  
Renji had promised to make her a silk net and help her catch the big golden fish that made its home by the reedy banks of a clear fast-flowing stream at the edge of the Kuchiki Clan’s property.  It had so far eluded their every attempt to capture it.  
  
She had so much yet to do! She still yearned for the taste of lychee, so fragrant, sweet, and juicy in the summertime, to hear Hisana’s clear bell-like voice singing, on the days when she was well. Rukia still wanted to climb the trees, feel the rough bark scratching at the palms of her hands, and the hot summer breeze on her cheeks, smell the woodsmoke of autumn in the air as winter drew near once more.  
  
Above all, Hisana needed her.  Hisana had always needed her.  Rukia looked upwards.  Fuzzy green buds, heralding the coming spring laced the sinuous bare branches of the plum tree, the blossoms and leaves ready to burst into bloom, unhindered by frost and snow.  
  
Rukia decided to stay.  

* * *

  
  
True to her word, Rukia hung around Kuchiki manor even after the 49 days of mourning had ended.  
  
She kept Hisana company, for she was so alone, and the Kuchiki elders had always disliked her for her low birth and inability to produce an heir.  
  
Byakuya had married her early. It was the only time he had ever defied the clan.  
  
When Hisana combed her long glossy hair, Rukia stood by her shoulder.  Hisana always told Rukia that she chattered like a sparrow, and so Rukia spoke to her non-stop in the hopes that eventually Hisana might hear her.  Sometimes, when Byakuya was away at court, Hisana would weep silently and refuse all food.  It made Rukia sad to see how her sister still missed and mourned her.  
  
"Don't be sad.  I've never left!  I'm still right here beside you.  If you don’t eat, I’ll...break your mirrors!”  It was an empty threat, but Rukia caught Hisana cocking her head as though listening to something very faint, just below hearing frequency.  
  
The next day, Hisana asked the attendants to prepare several of her favorite dishes.  
  
Byakuya gave her an enquiring look.  It hadn't escaped his notice how thin and pale Hisana had been lately.  Rukia's death was a big blow to her, and Hisana had always felt responsible for Rukia.  After their parents' death, Hisana was more mother than sister and Byakuya was worried that Hisana blamed herself.  
  
"Byakuya," Hisana said, laying her hand softly on his forearm, "I’m sorry I worried you.  I must have worried Rukia too, because last night I dreamt that she told me to eat or else she’d break all my mirrors."  
  
Byakuya’s face softened.  “That sounds like her.”    
  
Hisana looked away, ashamed.  "I’m an awful sister.  I leaned on her so much.  She worried about me.  She still worries."  
  
Byakuya touched her cheek gently. "When we are weak, it is acceptable to lean on others for support. There is no purpose in lamenting about past mistakes. If you wish to make amends, start now. Otherwise, Rukia would worry too much to pass on."

When Rukia saw the color return to Hisana’s pale cheeks, she preened with pride.  Perhaps her sister could hear her after all!    
  
In life, Rukia spoke with a soft low voice, afraid to embarrass Byakuya or her sister, afraid to offend the old men of the Kuchiki clan who looked upon Byakuya’s barren wife, and her uncultivated sister with such disdain.  She began to speak louder now, unmindful of how unladylike it was.  After all, there were no more tutors to please and no one heard her anyway.  
  
There was no one to complain about her running up and down the halls, or climbing to the topmost branch of Byakuya’s favorite cherry tree in the innermost courtyard garden, surrounded by the hazy pink veil of springtime blossoms.  It felt nice when the sunbeams passed through her body.  Even if she couldn’t feel the radiant warmth anymore, Rukia still remembered how it used to feel and sighed with pleasure at the memory.  
  
Sometimes, on daring days, Rukia would even float up to the beams of the rafters and dangle upside down from there, her translucent white robes floating about her like seaweed as she made frightful faces at stuffy old clan elders below, laughing into her sleeve as they shivered and sneezed and looked about fearfully.

"They say there is a ghost in the manor," the Kuchiki Clan servant whispered in Byakuya's ear.    
  
His steady hand only paused one minuscule moment in the midst of his calligraphy before resuming long even strokes across the xuan rice paper.    
  
Byakuya was not a hasty man, nor did he often make hasty decisions without thought or deliberation. It was what made him such a respected member of the imperial court.  
  
The soft feathery swishing sounds of brush tip against paper were the only sounds in the room.  Finally, with a long graceful flick of his wrist, Byakuya lifted the brush off the paper, and mindful of his sleeves, cleaned the white horsehair brush with the ebony handle and hung it up to dry.  
  
Heike, his white haired personal attendant and master of household, waited loyally for his orders.  
  
“Burn more incense,” Byakuya commanded as he rose from his desk.  Then he swept out of the room without a backwards glance, dark robes brushing across the top of the wooden doorframe.    
  
Heike bowed dutifully and allowed himself a small smile.  Byakuya knew the best and most diplomatic ways to make the Clan elders squirm.  Heike had always liked Rukia who treated everyone with respect, regardless of station.  Sometimes he imagined he could still hear that child’s laughter echoing down the halls of Kuchiki manor.  If the ghost of Lady Rukia did indeed haunt Kuchiki manor, it didn’t bother him one bit.

* * *

  
  
Rukia wafted in the updraft of the burning incense with a contented smile on her face. Since she had died unmarried, they couldn’t put her spirit tablet with the other ancestors of the Kuchiki clan. It was completely unfair, in her opinion, but that was the way things were. Fortunately, they hadn’t forgotten about her even if they had stuck her tablet in the corner, far away from everyone else. Someone kept putting out extra sticks of incense for her. First, just one, then two, and now three! Rukia floated happily in the fragrant sandalwood smoke. She would have to figure out a way to thank Byakuya, who despite his busy schedule, still found time to visit, and Hisana, who found solace in speaking to Rukia even as she implored her not to make too much mischief. And Heike, too who sometimes put the incense out himself and prayed for the safe passage of her soul through the underworld.  
  
Just then, two girls from the Kuchiki clan entered to pay their respects.  They were the daughters of the second son of Byakuya’s third cousin.  In Rukia’s life, they had always been nice to her...but she was beginning to unearth all sorts of things in her death.    
  
They stopped short when they spied the incense burning in front of Rukia’s spirit tablet.  
  
Tall Flower, (Rukia’s nickname for her) made a noise of disdain.  “Really, is this proper?”  
  
Bending down in a graceful swirl of silken skirts, she snatched up the sticks of lit incense and smothered them head down into the sand until they were extinguished.    
  
Rukia gasped in outrage.  “Hey!” she shouted angrily, waving her hands in front of the girl’s face.  “Those were lit for me!”  
  
“Oh, don’t!” Round Vase tittered nervously, looking around.  “Haven’t you heard?  Her ghost still haunts the manor.”  
  
“That’s nonsense.” her sister replied.  “If I don’t believe in them, then they don’t exist!”  
  
Round Vase shivered, her silver hair ornaments shook along with her.  “Ugh, but what if she’s a hungry ghost?  Wasn’t she such a scrawny thing?  I wouldn’t be surprised.  And the servants-”  
  
“Are superstitious peasants,” Tall Flower interrupted, brushing lint off her embroidered sleeve.  “Hurry up now and bring the incense here, where it belongs.”    
  
After they bowed three times in front of the altar of their ancestors, the two girls left in a swirl of expensive silk and perfume.  Rukia followed along, fuming.    
  
Kuchiki manor was built in the traditional style, a courtyard surrounded by four buildings. What was once simple and elegant had grown as the noble Kuchiki Clan had grown in status and influence over the generations. The four buildings became four adjoining halls and the nucleus of Kuchiki manor around which other compounds, attached rooms and quarters had been added. Shaded walkways, beautifully decorated, encircled each of the twenty gardens, yards, and outer halls. In the north wing, behind the main house, young unmarried daughters gathered to work on embroidery or weaving. That was where the two girls were headed.  
  
Rukia had been there a few times, but it was a frightfully boring affair where the young women worked on embroidery and bragged about the prospective marriages their fathers were planning for them.  
  
So far, Rukia’s antics had only consisted of making faces, tugging lightly at sleeves, and blowing cold air at people’s necks.  This time, she drifted through the ornately paneled rosewood door of the room and braced both hands against it.    
  
“Eh?” she heard one of them say on the other side.  “It’s stuck!”  
  
“Push harder!” said the other one.  Rukia grinned and let go, laughing as Round Vase tumbled through, tripping over the door frame and going head over skirts.  
  
After checking the door suspiciously, and finding no flaw in the leveled wood, they settled uneasily and began to gossip once they picked up their needles and thread.  
  
Rukia floated up to the rafters and sat there considering the two with narrowed eyes and a thoughtful air.    
  
“So,” said Round Vase picking out a peony in pink thread on ivory silk, “you’ve been quite silent on the topic of marriage recently.  Have you given up?”  She smiled, dimples standing out on her smooth round cheeks.  “I heard that father was asked about you...for the son of a wealthy merchant.”  
  
“I have my eyes set higher,” Tall Flower replied, not looking up from her embroidery.    
  
Round Vase put aside her sewing and frowned, resting her elbow on a side table.  “Don’t tell me you’ve still got your eyes set on cousin Byakuya!  How many years has it been?”  
  
Rukia’s ears pricked up at the mention of her brother’s name.    
  
“Why shouldn’t I have my eyes set on him?”  Her dark eyes flashed, full of vexation.  “I deserve the best.”    
  
“No doubt about it, sister.  But, it seems that cousin Byakuya is not inclined to marry again, no matter what.  That gold-digger has her claws in deep.”  
  
“You think so?”  Tall Flower once again took up a calm superior tone.    
  
“Tell me all that you know!” her sister cried, grabbing her arm.  
  
“Very well...but tell no one,” said Tall Flower, thin fingers pinching into the fleshy softness of Round Vase’s arm.    
  
After she had extracted a promise of secrecy that satisfied her, Tall Flower nodded.  
  
“The clan needs an heir,” she supplied.  “Cousin Byakuya  had wanted to name _that girl_ his heir and arrange her a marriage with a lesser noble house.”  
  
“Oh, like Kuchiki Kouga?”  Round Vase had caught on more quickly than Rukia.  
  
After Kouga married Byakuya’s aunt, he took her surname and had been adopted into the Kuchiki Clan.  The precedent had already existed whereby the clan could adopt a son-in-law into the family.  However, this was the first time Rukia had heard that Byakuya wanted to name her as his heir.  How did _these two_ know more about the goings on in the manor than she did?  
  
She leaned forward attentively from her seat on the narrow wooden beam.  
  
“Exactly so,” said Tall Flower as she picked out a green thread on a field of light blue silk.  
  
Round Vase looked troubled.  “But she didn’t have a single drop of Kuchiki blood.  How could they have allowed that?”  
  
“I overheard mother and father speaking.  The elders were furious, but it was only talk.  If that girl hadn’t fallen ill...” Tall Flower trailed off and shrugged her thin shoulders.  “In any case, the Clan needs an heir.”  
  
“What about Kouga’s childen?  I mean when he has them.  Wouldn’t they be the heirs now?” Round Vase asked thoughtfully.  
  
Rukia grudgingly admitted that the two girls were very well-versed in the inheritance law of the Kuchiki Clan.  
  
Tall Flower smiled unexpectedly.  “Of course.  Unless Byakuya should somehow get an heir.”  
  
“Hah!” Round Vase scoffed, “No help in that direction.”  
   
“Perhaps,” said Tall Flower airily as she held her embroidery up to admire it in the light.  “There’s only so many times you can sow a field, but once no crops grow, quite soon you’ll look for land that’s more...suitable.”  She fixed her sister with a knowing glance.    
  
Rukia’s fingers tightened on the wooden beam beneath her.  “You dim-witted fool!  Anyone can see that Byakuya doesn’t care about things like that!”  Rukia yelled from her perch near the ceiling.  
  
Round Vase shivered for a moment, and looked around distractedly before adding, “That woman has always suffered from frail health.  I’m surprised that an illness took Rukia instead. So that’s why you begged father to refuse all offers!”  
  
“Hm.” Tall Flower didn’t bother to confirm or deny it.  Her self-satisfied smile said it all.  
  
“Sly.”  Round Vase looked impressed.  “You’re absolutely right.  Everyone knows the clan elders are getting nervous.  Soon, they’ll put the pressure on cousin Byakuya and he’ll have no choice.”  
  
 “It’s high time that he set aside that charity case. Furthermore,” Tall Flower continued, unaware of Rukia’s building fury, “no matter how skillfully you weave, you can never turn hemp into silk.”

At that, the two laughed behind their sleeves.  Rukia roared and swooped down from the rafters, vengeful and quick like lightning.  
  
She meant to grab Tall Flower’s hair, and yank her to the ground like she used to do to bullies in the streets of Rukongai, but her cold ghostly hand merely passed through elaborately coifed hair, brushing the warm living skin at the nape of the girl’s neck.  Skin hot with the rush of blood underneath, seared her icy fingertips.  
  
“Aiaah!  What was that?” screeched Tall Flower, jumping up, clasping a hand to the back of her neck, embroidery tossed to the floor forgotten.  “Something touched me,” she said eyes darting around the empty room fearfully.  
  
“Byakuya would never marry you!  He loves Hisana because she treated him no differently, even after she found out who he was.  You take back what you said about my sister.” Rukia said, voice low and deadly.    
  
“D-did you hear that?”  Round Vase’s knees shook as she rose to her feet.  
  
Cold wind began to build around Rukia.  The window shutters blew open, slamming against the walls.  “Hisana is worth more than ten of you!”  
  
Both the girls looked at each other, eyes wide and terrified.  
  
“G-G-GHOST!!!” Tall Flower and Round Vase screamed, tripping over each other in their haste to get away.  
  



	2. Getting a Groom

“Rukia,” Hisana admonished, “why did you cause so much trouble?”

In the corner, invisible to Hisana, Rukia hung her head, sulking. It had only been a day since she scared the two Kuchiki girls but news had spread fast.

Before long, some of the servants refused to step foot inside the manor and there was talk from the nervous Kuchiki clan elders of calling in an exorcist.

Rukia was afraid. She didn’t want them to open the gates of hell and call up the horse faced guards crowned with bull horns to drag her into the underworld in chains. And yet, despite her fear, or maybe in spite of it, she was also sullen.

“They started it,” she muttered, out of habit more than anything else. Once again, she felt as though she had somehow brought shame to Hisana and Byakuya.

“Are you unable to pass because you’re worried about me?” Hisana asked to the general air. Even though she couldn’t see nor hear Rukia, she had a good sense of when her spirit was present. “You needn’t worry. See? I’m in good health.”

Rukia shifted uncomfortably. Hisana was much healthier now, though she had her bad days. Byakuya had always been attentive in his own unobtrusive way. They took good care of each other. So what was keeping her from moving onto the afterlife?

If she were being completely truthful, Rukia would say that she was just a tiny (tiny!) bit afraid, but she stubbornly refused to admit it, even to herself. And besides being a ghost was kind of fun. Even though no one could see her or most times hear her, she could run around and make the kinds of mischief she had missed in Rukongai, in the streets of Inuzuri.

“When Byakuya comes back from court, I will have to speak to him about this,” Hisana said. “You can’t go around scaring people in the manor. It’s not nice.”

“Nooo!” Rukia wailed holding her cheeks as she spiraled up towards the ceiling. “I’ll be good!”

Hisana cocked her head, bangs falling across the bridge of her nose. Her face softened. “Rukia...you don’t need to protect me. I was weak and leaned on you too much.”

Hisana straightened her thin shoulders, drawing herself up to full height. “It’s all right, now. I might not know much, I might not be well educated, but I know people. The Kuchiki...this is how they are. They respect rules and order, just like your brother. They are hard, prideful people. I might not have had your strength, but even gentle water can wear down the roughest stones. Do you understand Rukia?”

Even though Hisana couldn’t see her, Rukia nodded.

Hisana withdrew three sticks of sandalwood incense and lit them in front of Rukia’s spirt tablet. “Byakuya and I just want you to be at peace, to be happy so that you can move on and be reborn. Can you do that?”

With that, she left Rukia pondering.

* * *

 

On the evening that Byakuya returned from Seireitei, he seemed unperturbed that the manor was as quiet as a grave and there was not a servant to be found, save Seike who had accompanied him to the capital. His personal servant’s face reddened in shame when he found Lady Hisana setting out dinner herself. Before he could storm off and chastise the household staff, Hisana stopped him with a smile and told him to take a well earned evening off.

Hisana smiled pleasantly as she poured Byakuya some wine into a shallow saucer. “I assume you heard about an incident involving a mischievous ghost?”

“Word had reached my ears,” Byakuya replied.

Hisana then explained how the whole house was in an uproar, how the servants were spooked, claiming that Rukia was now a hungry ghost out to steal lives, and how the two girls were shut into their rooms, refusing to come out, and just plain terrified out of their wits that Rukia would strangle them in their sleep.

“Everyone is uneasy,” Hisana said. Her voice was calm but she twisted a handkerchief between her hands fretfully.

Byakuya said nothing, merely sipped his wine, expression pensive.

Finally, he looked up, towards the gently swaying branches of the cherry tree with its blossoms in full bloom. The scent of the flowers lingered in the air, light and sweet as spring.

“Two pine needles dry and fall but do not separate. Yet petals of cherry blossoms scatter on the winds.”

Hisana nodded. “Rukia must be so lonely. We should arrange her a spirit marriage so she can rest at ease, knowing that there will be descendants to look after her and burn offerings for her in the afterlife.”

“Would you like for me to make inquiries?”

“No,” Hisana said resting her hand on Byakuya’s arm, “it is my duty as a sister. I’ve already failed her too many times to count.” She gazed out over the garden, seeing a different time and a different place, the hard days when she and Rukia were just another pair of orphans that cluttered the dirty streets of Inuzuri.

“You are sure.”

Hisana’s soft voice belied the steely glint of determination in her eyes. “I won’t fail her again. It’s the very least I can do for the sister that I love, so please leave this up to me.”

Silence lingered between Hisana and Byakuya. Byakuya’s mouth softened around the edges. “You never cease to surprise me.”

Hisana blinked and pulled her red cloak closer around her. It was the last thing she had expected him to say. Late spring was marked by chilly evenings. “Still? Even after all this time?”

“Even after all this time,” Byakuya confirmed dipping his head. “What of your health?”

“What of it?” Hisana merely laughed under Byakuya’s measured glance. “Really, I’m fine! No need to worry!” A coughing fit took her for a moment and Hisana covered her mouth with her fine gauze handkerchief.

She recovered quickly and waved him down when he made a motion to rise and call for the doctor.

Byakuya had better manners than to hover, but all the same, he looked on anxiously.

“I’m fine, my Lord Byakuya. Rest assured that I am still stronger than I look,” she added testily to his doubtful expression.

For a long moment, Byakuya said nothing. There was only the sound of crickets chirping in the courtyard, the faint sigh of breeze through the tree branches.  Moonlight gilded the courtyard in silvery light.

“Very well,” he finally said. “I will take care of any travel arrangements.”

That last was said in a tone that brook no argument.

“Oh, all right,” Hisana conceded, smiling gently. “But dear, could you arrange for a plain palanquin this time? The last one was a bit...excessive.”

To his credit, Byakuya did have the good grace to look embarrassed.

* * *

 

Hisana picked the most auspicious day to set out to find Rukia a groom. Normally, they would see a matchmaker to arrange the best match, but since Hisana never had a matchmaker herself, and Byakuya found her nonetheless, she decided against it.

“Wise men will see the way in stars, but the way exists despite them too,” Hisana said to herself on the morning of her departure. “The fated tends to happen despite our best efforts.”

Hisana rested her hand on the heavy red door of the Kuchiki mansion. Its ostentatious brass knockers gleamed in the early morning light. She looked up towards the upswept eaves of the roof. A flock of birds passed overhead, making no noise save that soft peculiar sound of feathers slipping through air as they cut across the bright blue sky. “Wait for me, Rukia! Your sister will find you the best match, and you won’t have to worry anymore and can rest in peace.”

With that, she set out with a retinue of servants. It was uncommon for a well-bred lady to travel very far, but seeing as how it was Hisana, the Kuchiki Clan elders didn’t much care, and merely reminded her not to bring shame upon their family.

With only that as her farewell, as Byakuya was adjudicating a case in court, Hisana set out with high hopes.

It was sunny on the road, a bit hot for spring. Along the road, trod smooth by a thousand feet, travelers kicked up little clouds of dust from the dirt path as they walked along with cloth wrapped bundles of goods slung over their backs. The servants bearing the palanquin were beginning to tire and Hisana felt terrible for them. Despite their protests that she was the lightest weight they had ever borne, she bid them to stop and take a drink of water.

“Please don’t walk far, Lady Hisana,” Yuki, one of the servants begged.

“Hey, don’t tell the lady what to do!” Shino, one of Hisana’s maidservants set on him immediately.

Hisana smiled and waved her hands placatingly. “It’s alright! I won’t go far to stretch my legs!”

While Hisana moved off the rough trail and pretended to stretch, she dropped a small green silken purse discreetly by the way side and then hurried back to where the servants were waiting for her.

“I have dropped a purse of gold,” she explained as she motioned in the direction of where the purse lay within sight of wayfarers. “I’m sorry to trouble you all, but could you go through the motions of looking for it?”

Shino and Yuki looked at each other.  “Yes, Lady Hisana,” they both said in unison and without question the rest of the servants followed their lead.

Up the road, a tall thin man stopped by the side of the road, and after pausing a bit, stooped down and picked up something from the tall grass.  
As he passed by, Yuki stopped him. “Sir, my lady has dropped a green purse and I wonder if you have seen it?”

“Che! What if I did? You going to make me give it back?” The man put his hand on the hilt of his sword.

Yuki drew back with a wary expression. Up close he didn’t look so thin, rather, tall and imposing. The robe he wore opened at his chest, broad with lean cords of muscle.

The man’s blue catlike eyes gleamed with a sly look. “I never said I found anything on the road, but if I did, it’s mine to keep...unless you’re strong enough to make me give it back! That the law of the road, yo!”

And with that, the man shouldered past poor Yuki and swaggered off.

“Idiot!” Shino said, pushing Yuki in the shoulder with the sharp tip of her index finger. “He had it! Why didn’t you stop him?”

“He was s-scary!” Yuki said hands covering his head from further assault.

Shino crossed her arms and gave him a look gilded with disdain. “You’re like a big turtle. The minute you see danger, you stick your head back into your shell!”

“Yeah?” Yuki said drawing himself up. “W-well, maybe you should have fought him! You’re as strong as an ox, anyway...”

Shino suddenly got an evil expression on her face as she advanced on Yuki threateningly. “Hah? What did you say?!” she yelled as she pinched him.

“Ah, nothing, nothing!”

“I’m a gentle....delicate....girl....!” she said between pinches.

“Ouch that hurts, Shino! Yield...yield!”

Hisana laughed softly and waved her hand between them. “It’s alright!” she said. “And anyway, I’m looking for a worthy man for my sister.” She straightened her shoulders. “This is a character test.”

Yuki and Shino’s face softened in complete understanding as they gave each other a silent look. “We’ll do our best, Lady Hisana!”

Hisana gave Shino a second purse, blue with a cloud white trim and had her drop it in the same place she dropped the first purse.

Soon, a handsome man dressed in scholar’s robes bent down, hand reaching into the tall green grass by the side of the road. After a moment, he straightened and seemed to pocket something in his robes.

“Let me handle this,” Shino said to Yuki. “Excuse me sir,” she called out, batting her eyes prettily, “my lady dropped a purse while we were on the road. Have you seen something like it?”

The man had a very kind face, with wavy brown hair and brown eyes that gleamed beneath the dark frame of his glasses. Glasses were expensive and hard to come by; clearly, he had come from a good family.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he replied in a smooth hypnotic voice that sounded as though he had gargled silk. “Allow me to help you look for it.” His face was pleasant enough and he had even white teeth, but his smile never reached his eyes.

After ten minutes of the farce, Shino told him tersely to continue on his way.

“Really, how can someone look so fair and have such a foul heart?” Shino slumped against the palanquin and mopped her brow dejectedly with a gauze handkerchief.

“Haha, I bet you were just sour that he wasn’t swayed by your face to return the purse!” Yuki pointed out.

He scored a direct hit, and Shino’s cheeks reddened as she shot him a sour look.

Yuki, who didn’t know when to quit, continued. “Who could blame him, with a face like that...”

“Who asked for your opinion?! Let’s see how your face looks when I’m done with you!” Shino yelled as she pinched and stretched his face.

“It’s said that looks are good, and money is better, and if one has both, then they will easily find a match,” Hisana mused quietly. “But to me, neither looks nor money mean anything if their heart isn’t good and kind. Rukia wasn’t meant to be matched with someone with a bad heart.”

They were down to the last purse, black lined in white. The lustrous dark surface of the silk purse seemed to soak up the light as Hisana hefted it in her hand. Five golden taels clinked together within as she handed the purse to Yuki.

The setting sun stretched each passing traveler’s shadow into a long dark sword. Hisana watched the horizon intently and just as she began to give up, a man carrying a wooden back-pack stopped by the side of the road and bent down.

He had short-cropped dark hair, and carried the wooden cabinet of a traveling doctor. His face was coarse and rough, covered with a dark bristly beard. There was a bump in the middle of his nose as though it had been broken before in the past, but his eyes were warm and kind. “Did you drop this madam?” he asked before anyone approached him. “I figured it might be yours since we are the only people on the road!”

“You have my thanks, kind and honest sir!” Hisana grabbed his hands earnestly. The purse dropped out of his hands as he started. “Please tell me your name so that I can properly give you my gratitude.”

The man gently disentangled himself and rubbed the back of his head. “Er, well thanks, haha! No problem! My name is Kurosaki Isshin.” He thumped his fist on his barrel chest proudly as he smiled.

“The truth is I am looking for a kind and honest husband for my dead sister, since her spirit can find no rest. Will you perhaps consider marrying her?”

Isshin rubbed his bristly beard thoughtfully. “Ah...well you see, I am already married. My wife and I, our match was made by the Old Man of the Moon, tied by red string and all. She waits for me on the bridge of the underworld and I’m sure that she’ll toss me over it if I show up with another wife.”

Hisana hung her head sadly, even though she was deeply moved. “I see. You’re very devoted to her, so I understand this may be too much to ask.”

Isshin began to panic as he spied tears gleaming on the end of Hisana’s dark lashes. “Wait, wait!” He waved his hands frantically. “I have a young son! He’s as good as his old man. Maybe even better if he works hard at his studies. I’m sure he won’t object.”

Hisana looked up hopefully. “Truly?”

Isshin nodded solemnly. “I give you my word.”


	3. Belligerent Bride

Rukia watched from the rafters in the roof as Renji stood at attention in front of Byakuya’s teak desk.  Like most items of furniture in Kuchiki mansion, its stark beauty emphasized function over form.  The wood was polished to a sheen and carefully leveled and only at the feet did they turn up into softly rounded corners.  
  
“You called sir?” Renji asked as he removed his helmet and tucked it under his arm.  
  
Byakuya was in the middle of writing so Rukia’s old friend waited patiently, only fidgeting with the fringe of horsehair on his helmet.  Soon, Byakuya finished his letter and poured sand over smooth paper to soak up excess wet ink, stamped his seal, and handed it to his white-haired attendant who then bowed himself out of the room.  
  
That left Renji and Byakuya.  Rukia covered her mouth with her sleeve and stifled a laugh.  She could tell that Renji had an intense desire to fidget by the way he kept shuffling his large feet.    
  
“Renji, you’re ridiculous!” she hooted from her corner near the ceiling.  “Stand up straight!”  He was a lieutenant now, and had passed all the martial arts tests with flying colors.  And yet, he somehow still seemed uneasy as he stood in front of her proud brother.  
  
“My sister is to be married,”  Byakuya said, folding his slender graceful hands together and resting them on the table.  
  
Rukia started and nearly fell off the pine beam perch near the ceiling and felt an instant of fear before the realization hit once again that she was dead.  She checked her fall and drifted down to the tile floors, transparent white robes floating around her like gauzy wisps of spider web.    
  
“Oh.” For a moment, neither man said anything.  Renji looked down at the floor.  A look of deep sorrow and longing crossed his face so quickly that Rukia thought she imagined it.  In an instant it was gone.  
  
“Congratulations,” Renji managed to mumble as he scratched at the back of his head and looked away.  Rukia could tell the desire to fidget had returned ten-fold.  
  
“Hey, wait a minute...why are you marrying me off?”  Rukia wailed.  “I promised I would be a good Kuchiki ghost!”  Her voice fell on deaf ears.  
  
As she floated around them in ever-tightening circles of agitation, Byakuya continued.  “This...boy lives in a village not far from here,” he said.  “I would have liked someone closer, but it was Hisana who found them and is adamant about the match.”  
  
There was a long pause as Byakuya studied Renji with a face as expressive as a still pond.    
  
Renji on the other hand seemed miserable under his lord’s scrutiny.  “Lady Hisana always did have good taste!” he said as cheerfully as he could.  
  
When Byakuya merely raised one fine thin eyebrow in response, Renji fell silent again.    
  
“I have made inquiries,” Byakuya said calmly.  “The Kurosakis are a cadet branch of an old noble house.”    
  
“That...that sounds like a good match,” said Renji.    
  
“Does it?” Byakuya wondered.  “You knew her well...”  
  
“No!  That doesn’t sound like a good match at all!  I want to stay here.  Tell him, Renji!” said Rukia, drifting down to the tile to stamp her ghostly feet.    
  
Renji hung his head and closed his eyes.  “Forgive me sir, I don’t know much about matchmaking, but if the Kurosakis are nobles, then it should be a match equal to Lady Rukia.  She’ll never have lack of descendants to pay their respects and make offerings to her in the afterlife.”  
  
Rukia stopped and looked at Renji, feeling betrayed.  His large hand was balled into a fist at his side, white-knuckled and tense.  They used to be such good friends.  What had gone awry?  How had they drifted so far apart?  It never used to be like that when they were kids.  “Is that what you think, Renji?”  He couldn’t hear her.  He never heard her.    
  
Byakuya was now giving orders to Renji regarding the duty of guarding Rukia’s dowry, to be delivered to the Kurosakis at the wedding.    
  
She swept out of the room and drifted in the gentle eddy of a breeze in the courtyard.    
  
True, she had more freedom now...she could drift down to the market and watch fishwives haggle prices with maids of noble houses and had even gone down to Inuzuri, smiling as she watched children splash in the stream with their hemp trousers rolled up to their thighs, as she and Renji had once done...so long ago, before circumstance and social station separated them.  It was like a dream from another life.  Memories seemed far away and getting hazier every day.  It was getting hard to remember what it felt like to be alive.  Death cleanly severed her from what had been her life to her not-life as she existed now.  Suddenly, Rukia felt so tired.  
  
If her home was no longer here in Kuchiki mansion, where would she go?  She could leave...after all there was no one to stop her...but she had seen the hungry ghosts, those who had no families to care for them in the afterlife and she had run away from them when they looked up with glowing eyes from their corpse dinners in lonely roadside ditches, ravening mouths stretched wide open and dripping green ichor, bellies distended by a hunger that could not be fulfilled with any earthly food.    
  
However, as frightful as they looked, they were merely weak shades of what they had once been while alive and Rukia was stronger than them, those poor pitiful spirits.  But only because Hisana remembered her, and Byakuya too, and Renji sometimes came to make offerings and whisper quietly: “Rukia are you there?”    
  
Rukia dared not run away, but she could no longer stay in Kuchiki mansion to watch over Hisana and Byakuya, and even that dolt Renji too.  She could no longer spend her days wishing for a nephew or niece, nor sit in Byakuya’s favorite tree or listen to Hisana sing and play the pipa in the morning and it made her unbearably sad.    
  
They picked an auspicious day for Rukia’s ghostly ‘wedding’.  Mostly she tried to ignore it while attendants helped Hisana set aside Rukia’s dowry.  There were combs of jade and pearl, elaborately wrought golden bracelets, and teak furniture, sets of purple clay teacups delivered all the way from Jiangsu, lovely bolts of lustrous black silk and small lacquered chests with yet more gold and ornate hairpins.  Most of which Rukia wouldn’t have used anyway.  She had always felt uncomfortable cosseted in the luxury of Kuchiki Manor after spending her early childhood as a street urchin in Inuzuri.    
  
Instead of sitting close to her sister and eavesdropping about the boring preparations, Rukia chose to say goodbye to the only place she could have really called home.  She walked through each garden, climbed every tree, touched each beam and column of the house and silently said goodbye.  

* * *

  
The closer the day came, the more mulish Rukia felt.  She didn’t want to go, and decided no one could make her.  
  
She hadn’t expected them to invite a Daoist priest to escort her spirit to her new home.    
  
The priest introduced himself as Juushiro Ukitake and he had long white hair, a kind gentle face, and eyes that crinkled at the corners when he smiled.    
  
He and Hisana greeted each other, coughing so vigorously, no one could understand what they said to each other at all.  
  
Rukia could tell that Ukitake was a kind man, and that like Hisana, pain and sickness had taken his strength but left him with patience, understanding, and compassion.  Rukia pushed aside her guilt, took a deep breath, and stuck her spirit tablet to the floor.  
  
“Ah?  It’s glued down,” Yuki said as he tried to pick up the spirit tablet from its spot on the ground.    
  
“You weakling, let me get it before you embarrass yourself!”  Shino walked over, rolled up her sleeves and pushed Yuki aside, but she had no better luck.    
  
  
The two of them were heaving and pulling with all their might when Ukitake stepped up.  “Allow me to try,” he said with a warm smile.  
  
Yuki and Shino looked at each other.  Earlier, Ukitake had looked ready to pass out or vomit blood.  “Well, if you’re sure,” they said as they reluctantly stepped back.  
  
Ukitake bent in a bow.  “Hello Rukia.  It’s so nice to finally meet you,” he said quietly.  He looked directly at her and smiled.  “You’re just as strong as I had heard!”  
  
Rukia started.  “Can you see me?” she asked tentatively.  
  
Ukitake looked sad.  “I no longer have the sight for ghosts anymore, but I know you’re here.”    
  
Crushed, Rukia felt her shoulders slump.  
  
“I’m sorry, little one,” Ukitake continued.  “I know you don’t want to go, but there’s no helping it.  You must go on to the other side.  There are laws of balance that must be obeyed.  If I were as healthy as I once was, I would have sent your spirit on.  I can only hope that this wedding will put your spirit to rest.  Become an ancestor instead of a ghost and rest in peace, little one.”  
  
Ukitake had strength and speed still, and if it were a fraction of what he once possessed, Rukia was impressed.  As quick as lightning, he pulled six yellow seals inscribed with vermillion ink and slapped them on her spirit tablet.  
  
“Wandering ghosts within the ten directions, six paths under the carriage of thunder, bridge of a spinning wheel, Six Rods, Prison of Light!”  Ukitake’s invocation saturated the air with power.    
  
Rukia felt as though she had been pierced through with cold iron.  When she looked down, six beams of light pinned her through the middle.  
  
Just like that, Rukia was bound and caught, compelled against her will to go along to her marriage.    
  
It wasn’t fair, Rukia reflected.  However, that was the way things happened, mostly.  Not everyone had a love story that ended up like Hisana and Byakuya.  Most girls had to depend on their fathers...or in her case, had she been alive, Rukia would have had to depend on the goodwill and wisdom of her brother Byakuya to find someone good and suitable for her to marry.  She had the utmost trust in Byakuya, of course.  Even so, Rukia thought that it would have been difficult to go willingly and leave home and family and begin the next phase of what was expected of her.  
  
Perhaps in an alternate version of her life’s events, one in which she hadn’t died, that might have been exactly what have happened.  Byakuya, as head of of the Kuchiki Clan and her own brother, would have arranged a marriage for her.  Someone kind, no doubt, and carefully chosen.    
  
Still a stranger, nonetheless.    
  
And Rukia, willing or not would have had to go obediently.  As Ukitake led her stiff, unresisting spirit into a palanquin, Rukia consoled herself that at least she was dead.  No one would expect her to do or be anything.  As a live girl, she might have been afraid, bound and constrained by rules and laws, living a life that never truly belonged to her, in a world that didn’t have a place that fit her.  Now that she was dead, the time that passed was her own.  With her newfound freedom as a ghost, this would be the last thing that anyone would force her to do.    
  
Karakura lay to the south of the provincial capital Seireitei, where the house seat of the Kuchiki Clan resided.  To get there on the perfect hour, they set out before sunrise, when the world was still covered by the inky cloak of night.    
  
Rukia, immobile as she was could only stare out the window of the palanquin.  Servants with lit lanterns flanked the trains of palanquins as they bore them through the winding road that cut through the dark forest.  The canopy of the tree branches arched overhead, forming a tunnel like the gullet of a great beast.  Fox-lights that lured the unwary and hungry ghosts beyond the walls of the trees that lined the road scattered as their train approached, unable to endure even the light of the lanterns.  
  
Just as Rukia thought that the forest tunnel had swallowed them and they were doomed to wander the road forever and ever, until they all became ghosts just like her, she saw a dim light ahead, which steadily grew larger until they passed out of the throat of the forest into the outskirts of Karakura Town.  
  
The lawlessness and grinding poverty of Inuzuri, and the bustling capital city Sereitei were all that Rukia had ever known.  Karakura was different.    
  
Rukia hadn’t expected that.    
  
The quiet town sat cradled in a lush green valley surrounded mountains.  A wide blue ribbon of a river fed by springs of snow-melt, wound its way lazily down the face of the mountain, through the town and fields surrounding it and beyond to the horizon where it disappeared into the distance, presumably to some far off ocean.  
  
Before she knew it, they reached a modest residence where the nameplate over the entrance read: Kurosaki.  
  
Now they were unloading the dowry that came with them; it was all happening so fast, everyone disembarked from the palanquins and stretched their legs.  Attendants carried Rukia’s spirit tablet with them and she had no choice but to float along against her will across the threshold of her new home.  
  
As she crossed the doorway of her new home, the priest Ukitake, who was walking along Rukia’s immobile spirit form undid the spell that sealed her.    
  
On one of the solid pine beams supporting the arched column of the entrance to the Kurosaki residence, Ukitake stuck a small seal.  “I’m sorry, Rukia,” he said sadly, “I can’t allow you to follow them back.”  
  
To test the theory, Rukia tried to cross over the doorway, only to be bounced back by an invisible force field that crackled and burnt on contact.  Her spirit form smoked and stung and she glared balefully at Ukitake.  
  
Apprehension struck through Rukia, as cold as iron, as solid as the six rods of light that held her immobile.  Just as she was a prisoner in the Kuchiki mansion, would she remain a prisoner for however long her ghostly life persisted?    
  
Ukitake’s sightless eyes turned towards her.  “I have high hopes that you may find peace and rest for your soul here.”  
  
Rukia, however, was not so optimistic.  
  


* * *

  
  
“Hold still, Ichi-nii!” Yuzu said around a mouthful of pins.  
  
Ichigo’s face was pulled into a frown, but there was nothing terribly unusual about that because that was how his face normally looked.  What wasn’t normal was the air of agitation around him as he jiggled his legs and watched Yuzu warily.  
  
Nearby Karin, his tomboy sister watched with sardonic amusement with her leg hiked up on a chair in a manner quite unbecoming of a young lady.  “Yeah, don’t even breathe or you’re going to end up a porcupine, like dad,” she drawled.  
  
“I honestly think you had more to do with that than me,” Yuzu said exasperatedly.  
  
Karin shrugged, all nonchalance.  “I admit nothing.  Besides the old goat deserved it.”  
  
Ichigo silently agreed.  
  
Normally, a groom’s outfit would be made by his mother, but Masaki had passed long ago, so it fell to little Yuzu.    
  
It hadn’t been easy for them all, but Yuzu had taken up the duties of the Lady of the house on her slim narrow shoulders and she bore the burden well.  She was a genius cook, and very good with sewing as well.  The household chores normally fell to her, though Ichigo tried to help as much as possible.  
  
Karin was better with numbers, and so, along with Ichigo, learned accounting and helped Isshin with the household budget.    
  
The last button had been sewn into place and Yuzu sat back to admire her handiwork.    
  
“Ichi-nii, you look so handsome,” she said clasping her hands together.  Her eyes shone with excitement.  
  
“I look so stupid, you mean,” Ichigo said, running his hand through his hair and tugging at the tight silk collar.  
  
One day, Isshin had come back from his travels from treating the sick of neighboring villages with a marriage offer.  
  
After the customary greeting of punches and kicks had been traded, and just when Ichigo didn’t think his father could get any crazier, Isshin revealed that he had promised Ichigo in matrimony.  To some strange lady he met on the road.  
  
He knew his father wanted grandchildren, and SOON, but he didn’t know the deranged man was that desperate.  Needless to say, Ichigo threatened to run away.  
  
“Just hear me out, will you?” Isshin had said while he got Ichigo in a headlock (so that he wouldn’t escape).  “There’s no real girl involved.  It’s a ghost marriage.  Never fear, you won’t have to become and adult...yet!”  
  
That helped calm Ichigo down somewhat, but it was the dowry that really clinched it.  The Kurosakis werenʼt poor, and practicing doctors had high esteem in their village and the villages surrounding Karakura. Isshin had no lack of work.  When Isshin was gone, the girls took turns managing their apothecary in town, which was partially owned and run by Isshin’s old friend and shady business partner, Kisuke Urahara.  
  
Even so, it took money to send Ichigo to school, to give him a tutor, in the hopes that he’d one day pass the civil servant tests, attain a rank, and restore the honor and prestige their clan once held.    
  
Ichigo was keenly aware of how much money it took.  He and Karin helped managed the books, after all, when Isshin was away.  Every time he looked at his sisters, his heart clenched because he knew that his schooling ate into their dowry.    
  
While he would have beaten any man within half an inch of their life if they were only interested in his sisters for their dowry, he also knew what people would say about the virtuous qualities of his sisters if they didn’t bring a dowry with them.    
  
With a dowry, his sisters could have their financial independence, and to know that they would have the means and wherewithal to leave, should they ever feel the need to.    
  
He wanted his sisters to live well, and to laugh often.  They loved him so and were such good girls, and they had gone through so many difficult times that Ichigo felt Karin and Yuzu deserved to live their lives in peace, happiness and comfort.    
  
The dowry from the ghost marriage presented an opportunity.  An opportunity to put something away for his sisters.  If that meant momentary discomfort, and lots of embarrassment, he’d gladly take it.  
  
And besides, it wasn’t _really_ real.    
  
With that thought, Ichigo grit his teeth and mentally prepared himself for performing his part of the play by ducking out for some quiet and fresh air in the garden before Isshin found him.    
  


* * *

  
  
Rukia floated away from the Kuchiki procession, from all the pomp and noise and the meeting and greeting.  No one could see her and she wasn’t needed there anyway and so she turned away and decided to explore what was to be her indefinite new home.    
  
The Kurosaki residence was by no means large, but it wasn’t tiny.  It was built in the traditional way, four halls with a courtyard garden in the middle, much like the Kuchiki mansion, but where the Kuchiki mansion had layers upon layers of halls and gardens, each larger and grander than the last, the Kurosakis only had the one.  It was neat and well maintained, but had the air of something melancholy, like a warrior who had once known greatness but was well past their prime, or like a woman who was left with wisdom and knowledge only after the vibrant spring of her youth had faded.  
  
The chips of paint were flaking off the door post of the entrance way.  Coming from living in the Kuchiki mansion, where everything was perfect and immaculate, one couldn’t help but notice things like that.  There were no servants here that she could tell.    Even small family houses like this one could sometimes be hard to manage if there was no household staff.    
  
The whole place felt warm and welcoming though, in a way the Kuchiki manor didn’t.  As Rukia skimmed her fingers along the panels and walls of the Kurosaki home, deep in her spirit, she felt that this place had once been full of laughter.  The walls...they remembered and they held an imprint and record of the goings on of the inhabitants within.  
Even so, thought Rukia, was she doomed to trade one prison for another?  
  
Rukia wandered further into the main hall facing the garden.  The doors were thrown open, to let the fresh air in, but it was still quite early in the day and the sunlight slanted down in an angle, leaving the hall shadowed.  Rukia felt thin and wispy in the sunlight.    
  
On a dark wood table, there was a bowl of lychees.  Rukia’s eyes lit up in delight.  Those were her favorite!  Somehow, the Kuchiki manor would always have them in their stocks even though they were hard to get.  Perhaps there was a tree somewhere in the garden...  
  
Her hand hovered over the bowl uncertainly.  She leaned in close and breathed in the aroma of the fruit, feeding on the scent.  Perhaps she was getting used to being a ghost after all.  But as she looked at the fruit with longing, dissatisfaction touched her heart.  She remembered their taste, so succulent and sweet and though as a ghost, she felt no real hunger, human desires remained.    
  
As soft as a butterfly, Rukia gently touched the lychees.  She could feel the leathery texture of the skin, the soft give of pulpy fruit housed within under her searching fingers.  Her mouth watered in anticipation.  She could feel it- the distance between her and the living world decreasing all the time.  Concentrating carefully, she picked out the ripest lychee and cradled it triumphantly to her heart.    
  
“Hey!  What do you think you’re doing?”  
  
Rukia jumped and whirled around guiltily.  
  
Before her, was a young man, thin and tall.  He had just come in from the garden.  A leaf had fallen on his head, the bright green a shocking contrast against brassy hair that stuck up in messy spikes in all directions, and spilled down his back, held in place by a cloth tie.  
  
His face looked like a rain cloud that was about to burst into a full blown thunderstorm as he scowled at her suspiciously.    
  
No that wasn’t right...he couldn’t be looking right at her.    
  
Rukia looked around and slowly said, “You can...see me?”  
  
The boy rolled his eyes.  “What do you think I’m looking at, thin air?  You’re a pretty dumb thief aren’t you?”  
  
A little bit of offense rose in Rukia, but disbelief still held her tongue.    
  
The boy cracked his knuckles and advanced menacingly.  “I’m going to ask you one more time.  Who are you and what are you doing here?”  
  
Rukia stood her ground and looked down her nose at him.  Just let him try to lay a finger on her.  She hadn’t had a good fight since her life in Inuzuri.  “I am Kuchiki Rukia,” she said in her most authoritative Byakuya-esque voice.  “And who, pray tell are you?”  
  
That seemed to stop him in his tracks.  “Kuchiki...Rukia?”  Complete surprise darted across his face for a moment and then he frowned even harder than before.  “That damn old man!” he bellowed as he stomped out of the room in a fury, leaving Rukia standing with her mouth agape in surprise.  
  
After a moment, she turned back to the object of her interest.  “Hmm,” she wondered, as she peeled the lychee and popped it in her mouth.  
  


* * *

  
  
“You lied to me!” Ichigo grit out as soon as he caught sight of his father.  They were sitting with the head of the Kuchiki family and exchanging pleasantries before the ceremony was to begin.  
  
Isshin stroked his beard thoughtfully.  “Oh?  You’re right, I shouldn’t have told you that every piece of rice you didn’t finish in your bowl would be a blemish on your future spouse’s face...”  
  
Ichigo seethed.  “I’m not in the mood for your jokes old man!  You told me that this is just a ceremony and there’s no real girl...well then explain to me what Kuchiki Rukia is doing in our garden?”  
  
Isshin burst into loud laughter.  “My boy, someone played a prank on you!”  
  
“I’m serious, she was there.  She looked just like her,”  he said pointing at the Kuchiki Clan head’s wife.  There was several gasps and a cold silence descended on the gathering.  
  
The Kuchiki Clan head, who hadn’t deigned to look at him before now, fixed his full attention on Ichigo.  His hair ornaments gleamed a burnished silver.  
  
“I was unaware that such manners would be allowed to proliferate,” he said as he looked at Ichigo with bored disdain, “Even in a branch clan...such as this one.”  
  
Isshin clasped an iron grip on Ichigo’s shoulder, but there was an easy smile on his face.  “Ah, forgive him, the fault lies with me.  I’m a good for nothing father that didn’t teach his son it’s rude to point.  As I thought, maybe this match was a little too much for our humble family.”    
  
Isshin maintained his smile, oblivious to the tense silence.  
  
It was Kuchiki Hisana who broke the silence.  “My sister, Kuchiki Rukia is indeed deceased.”  She looked at Ichigo sadly.  “I wish that it were not so.  If someone were playing a joke on you, it was very cruel of them.”    
  
Looking at Byakuya, Ichigo got the distinct feeling that if this Rukia were alive, he wouldn’t have been allowed anywhere near her.  She must be a spoiled brat, he decided.  Then he grit his teeth together.  He hoped it was a trick, otherwise whoever pranked him better be gone when this was all over, or so help him they were going to regret it when he got his hands on them...  
  
A priest with long white hair, and a gentle smiling face who seemed oblivious to the tension, clapped his hands together.  “Well, now that the meeting of the in-laws is over, shall we begin the ceremony?  It’s almost time.”    
  
Ichigo shrugged out of his father’s grip.  “Let’s get this over with.”  
  
As he turned around, he missed the uneasy glance that passed between Hisana and Byakuya.  
  
oOoOoOo  
  
Rukia floated just outside the pavillion where they were marrying her by paper proxy.  The sunlight slanting down made her feel insubstantial, like a piece of mist.  She wondered if she stood in it long enough, whether it would burn her away.  She watched the boy that they were marrying her to and for just one moment, allowed herself to wonder what it would have been like had she been alive.    
  
Rukia snickered to herself as she watched him serve Byakuya and Hisana tea ungracefully, jaw muscles clenched and with a face that wasn’t neutral enough to disguise deep embarrassment.  
  
Then he turned and looked right at her.  Rukia held her breath, but he did nothing but blink and rub his eyes and in another moment, he turned back to complete the ceremony.  
  
Disappointed, Rukia floated away to find some shade to rest under.  Did she imagine their interaction?  
  
After the ceremony was done and the cacophony of the suona pipe and the brassy sounds of the gongs and the percussion of drums faded, they ushered the groom away for his wedding night.    
  
Rukia scoffed and then followed the procession through the Kurosaki house until she came to the barrier at the threshold of the entrance.    
  
When she was no more than five or so, Rukia’s parents died leaving only herself and her older sister.  Hisana had supported them the best she could, but even Rukia, as young as she had been, could tell that Hisana was strained.    
  
One day, at market, Hisana disappeared from her side.  Rukia remembered the crowds swallowing her up, remembered pushing against the crush of bodies that surrounded her.    
  
It was just after sunset, when the sky was turning the color of a bruise when Hisana found her, scrubbing the tears off her dirty face in a narrow alley.  Her sister looked wide-eyed, hair disheveled and wild.  For a moment, Rukia didn’t even recognize until she pulled Rukia into a fierce hug.  
  
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Hisana had said over and over, and ‘forgive me’.    
  
Rukia watched the palanquins until they vanished into a point on the horizon She stood vigil at the threshold of her new home, leaning longingly towards her old home, ghostly raiment  swirling around her like clouds until the blue skies turned a gentle pink and purple to herald the oncoming night.  As she watched them all leave, Rukia felt now as she felt then, sitting in the alley alone.  
  
With a heavy heart, she turned away.  “Well, I’d better find a place to sleep!”  
  


* * *

  
  
Of course, as a ghost, one could sleep wherever.  No earthly elements could touch Rukia now.  But even ghosts retained the habits they once had as living human beings.  Just as you would rarely find a person comfortable sleeping out in the fields or the wide open spaces, neither would you find ghosts that don’t have a haunt.  
  
Ghosts were like people, only a little more dead and like people, they enjoyed having a place to sleep.  Rukia was no different.  In this matter, she was just like a typical ghost, so in search of a place to sleep, she wandered the Kurosaki household, aimlessly.  
  
“As I thought, this place is small,” Rukia said to herself, turning down one nook after another.  As an orphan who grew up in crudely constructed dwellings with leaky roofs and dirt floors, she was not making a judgement, but rather stating an observation.  
  
The first room she wandered through, belonged to her new sisters-in-law.  The two girls, were huddled very cozily under blankets together.  It warmed Rukia’s heart to see the two sisters so close.    
  
She only wished that she and Hisana had been closer in life, but there was the age difference, and Hisana’s marriage and illness made it difficult for them to speak their hearts with each other.  Hisana never wished to dwell on the past, it was too painful.  And Rukia was always worried about disgracing her brother and sister while she lived in Kuchiki Manor.  Rukia only realized in death what she never realized in life- that their hearts were closed to each other.  Hisana was preoccupied with avoiding her pain and suffering, and Rukia was preoccupied with trying to live up to the standards imposed upon her and neither sister lived in the present moment with each other.  So much time, wasted.  Rukia shook her head, to clear the melancholy thoughts and leaned forward from her eavesdropping perch on top of a crossbeam near the ceiling.  
  
“Karin, do you think brother actually saw a ghost?” asked the girl with light hair and a kind gentle face.    
  
There was a pause as dark-haired Karin stifled a yawn behind her hand.  “Who knows?”  There seemed to be a forced carelessness to this answer as Karin looked uneasy.  “Ichigo has seen things before.”  
  
“Yes, but that was before...  Now he doesn’t, right?  He said so...”    
  
Karin rolled her eyes.  “Yuzu, you can’t possibly buy his stories, what are you, six?  He sees them, he just doesn’t say.”  
  
Yuzu pulled the down comforter up to her chin and gave her sister a worried look.  “I’m scared!”  
  
“You should be,” Karin said lowering her voice, “a ghost could be spying on us right now!”  With a great shout, Karin jammed her fingers into her sister’s ribs.  Yuzu jumped and yelped.    
  
“Karin!”    
  
As Rukia watched the two laughing girls, she felt very much like an intruder, so quietly, she floated out of the room.    
  
The second room belonged to the father of the house.  He had forgone the ceramic cup and was instead swigging wine directly from a jug as he gazed up at what must have been a painted portrait of his wife.    
  
“Dear Masaki, I wish you had been here today to see your son!” Isshin said with a stuffy voice and a few tears in his eyes.  “What a cold and lonely night it will be...”    
  
“Ah, sorry Uncle,” Rukia blurted out as she made a quick exit.  Embarrassment colored her cheeks.  
  
The last room had no light in it and was completely dark and cold.  Rukia could see no silhouette behind the paper screen door.  
  
Taking a deep breath, she floated through the walls.  
  
In the middle of the room, was an island of dark silk, the carelessly discarded wedding clothes of the groom.  
  
The groom himself had already gone to bed- either oblivious to his father’s rather loud and maudlin recitation Li Bai’s poetry in the adjacent room, or ignoring it completely.  
  
Rukia cocked her head, birdlike and curious, and floated closer.  
  
Even in sleep, there was still tension in between his brows as though he was never really at peace.  The sharp lines of his face spoke of a stubborn character.  His hands rested by his sides.  In the dark, his hair wasn’t quite such a shocking color.    
  
Rukia considered for a moment, and then sat on top of him.  The air left his lungs in a surprised whoosh.  Immediately his eyes popped open, dark and angry.  “You!”  
  
Rukia could not tell whether she was feeling delight or relief.  Her feelings were too complex at the moment to puzzle out.  She hadn’t realized how deeply she abhorred lingering in the earthly realm, unseen and unheard.    
  
None of those feelings showed on her face, though as she looked down at him with a lofty expression.  “Hmph, so you can see me after all.”  
  
“Get...OFF!” he wheezed.  
  
Rukia obliged, and floated leisurely to the railing at the foot of the bed.    
  
He watched her warily.  “So you really are the ghost of Kuchiki Rukia, huh?”  
  
Rukia fussed at her garments which floated every which way, independently as though they had a mind of their own.  “I’m not ‘the ghost of’, I am Kuchiki Rukia.  I just happen to be a ghost.”    
  
The boy pulled the blankets around him tightly.  “You...you’re not going to...to seduce me are you?”  His face was bright red.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading this story!


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